


Back in the Day

by Magicalmanda



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bullying, M/M, Mickey is a thug, Young Gallavich, slight mentions of violence, young Ian is small
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 03:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magicalmanda/pseuds/Magicalmanda
Summary: A conversation between Lip and Ian causes Ian to remember an encounter he had with Mickey when they were younger.Basically Gallavich in middle school because I love kid fics.





	Back in the Day

"Hey you remember David Gosinski?" Lip asked as he crouched down in front of his brother. He had learned in psychology that you should crouch down when talking to nervous or scared children because it puts you at their eye level and you become less threatening. Lip knew that Ian wasn’t a child in any sense of the word, but the redheaded Gallagher had been scared as of late. "He used you to break the record for black eyes given in a single school year. I was gonna kill that motherfucker. But I'll always remember what you told me. You said 'I got this.' Ian, you got this." Ian smiled slightly at his brother, a new twinkle in his eyes. 

"I never told you the whole story," 

*** 

Ian's eye throbbed as David walked out of the bathroom. The older boy had been beating Ian up for almost two months, giving him weekly black eyes. The teachers didn’t see it and Ian's friends were too scared of David to do anything. Lip had been livid when he had found out, threatening to pummel the living daylights out of David, but Ian had refused, saying he would take care of it. Ian wanted to stand up to David. He didn’t need his big brother's help. He wasn’t the baby of the family, hadn't been since Debbie came along. And how was he supposed to protect her if he couldn’t even stand up for himself?  
  
So when David had him cornered in the bathroom, Ian had told him off, calling him names. He didn’t bother trying to fight David, the kid was a year above him and about fifty pounds heavier. But Ian thought not just taking it in silence anymore would throw David off. It did not. Instead, the older boy laughed and beat Ian twice as hard for having the gall to talk back.  
  
Ian groaned as he pulled himself off the floor. His eye and his ribs had matching bruises and his lip was bleeding down his chin. He cleaned off the blood with damp paper towels and took a few steadying breathes before heading back out into the hall. Just as Ian was leaving the bathroom, someone was coming in and they bumped into each other. Ian flinched back immediately.  
  
"Sorry," he mumbled before turning and high tailing it back to his classroom.  
  
After another week of black eyes, Ian knew he had to do something. Standing up to David hadn't worked. Ian could always go to a teacher, but 'snitches get stitches' was a real threat in his school. Lip would have beaten David up if Ian asked, but Ian didn’t want to go to his brother after he had assured Lip that he could handle it. So Ian decided to go with option four.  
  
Over the weekend he scrounged up all the loose change he could find around the house. A few pennies from Lip's discarded jeans, a crumpled dollar bill under a couch cushion, a quarter accidentally kicked under the washer. Once Ian had bled the house dry, he added his findings to the small stash of money he kept in a cleaned out peanut butter jar under his bed. He counted it twice, just to be sure, and hoped that it would be enough.  
  
Come Monday morning, Ian shoved all his money into his sock. He covered the bulge with his baggy pant leg and went to school. The money sat in his sock all morning, tickling and scratching the skin of his ankle. After Ian had eaten his free school lunch, he went outside into the cool Chicago air. Across the courtyard was a group of eighth grade boys, roughhousing before class. Lip called them thugs because they cussed and drank like Fiona, even though she was older. Ian walked over to them, heart in his throat and palms sweating. 

"What the fuck you want Red?" One of the boys called once Ian was a few feet from their group. Ian was tall for his age, but he was nowhere near these boys, but he squared his shoulder as he spoke, doing his best to keep his voice even.  
  
"I want to talk to Mickey," Ian said.  
  
"Yo Mick!" Another boy called over his shoulder. "Peewee here wants to talk to you." Mickey shoved his way through the circle until he was standing in front of Ian. Mickey was the shortest of all his friends, putting him only a few inches taller than Ian. He had pale skin, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes. As Ian looked at him, he couldn’t help but think that the older boy was pretty.  
  
"The fuck you want?" Mickey asked around a lit cigarette.  
  
"I want you to beat up David Gosinski," Ian said.  
  
"He do that to you?" Mickey asked, motioning to Ian's bruised eye. The redhead nodded. "He the one who beat you up in the bathroom last week?" Ian nodded again, not sure how Mickey knew about that, but not wanting to ask either. Mickey took a drag from his cigarette and tipped his chin up slightly to exhale over Ian's head. Ian was glad he did, Fiona would lose it if he came home smelling like smoke.  
  
"What's in it for me?" Mickey asked.  
  
"I'll pay you,"  
  
"How much?"  
  
"I only have twelve dollars," Ian said, voice become softer, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.  
  
"Twelve dollars?" Mickey's friend laughed. "Fuck off kid,"  
  
"Was he talking to you?" Mickey barked. "Then shut the fuck up!" He turned back to look at Ian. "I'll do it."  
  
"Really?" Ian beamed. Mickey's lips twitched into a small smile as the redhead hopped around on one foot, trying to get his shoe off. Once he had managed that, he carefully stripped his sock off and handed it over to Mickey. "Here," Mickey took the sock and noticed that it felt heavy with coins.  
  
"Alright, get out of here kid." Mickey said once he saw that the redhead was still grinning at him. Ian ran off, laughing happily, now with only one sock.  
  
The next day, David Gosinski showed up to school with two black eyes and a swollen nose. He didn’t even look at Ian. And as if Ian's day couldn’t have gotten better, after he'd changed out of his gym clothes and was getting ready to leave the locker room, he saw a sock tucked into his open backpack. Ian pulled it out and noticed it was filled with something. He peered inside to see coins and dollar bills, more specifically, his twelve dollars.

**Author's Note:**

> Please give me prompts. I don't go back to school for two whole months and I'm bored.


End file.
